Students share inventions

By JAN SEAGOPlainview ISD

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, April 24, 2010

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Ever try to hold a dinner-table conversation with one person and find you can’t hear or be heard over the conversation of others? Do you worry about "catching something" when drinking from a public fountain? Is replacing batteries taking a bite out of your budget?

If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, one of the very creative Plainview ISD fourth-grade PEAKS students may have an idea that can help.

The students recently completed work on a year-long project, Innovation Celebration.

Under the guidance of fourth grade PEAKS teachers Amy Meek and Jeff De La Garza, the students studied the lives of creative thinkers, scientists and inventors. They examined how our lives have been shaped and society impacted through innovations such as computers, cars, telephones, electricity, vaccines, drugs, space travel and more.

As part of the project, students also learned the steps in the research process, researched inventors and utilized the research to produce PowerPoint presentations on their subjects.

By the spring semester, students had learned that the key elements to innovation are the identification of a need, a creative idea to meet that need, persistence, and the ability to test and modify the innovation until it works. With this in mind, they were ready to put their research into practice and began working on their own inventions.

Meek said the students were eager to begin the project and put a lot of effort into coming up with unique ideas.

"They have the intelligence, the passion and the drive to be incredible inventors some day," she said.

Once the inventions were in production, students began thinking about their advertising market. They learned what it takes to patent a product, market that product and then develop advertising techniques to sell their product. Each student created a video-taped commercial complete with a jingle and slogan to market the product.

The inventions and commercials were shared with parents and community members during the "Innovation Celebration" event held recently in the Plainview ISD Board Room.

According to Patti Hutto, advanced academic services coordinator, the Innovation Celebration project is part of the Texas Performance Standards Project (TPSP), a statewide system designed to capture high levels of achievement in gifted/talented students. Projects are TEKS-based and focus on the core academic areas of language arts, math, science and social studies. The projects have three components: research, development of a product and communication.

Hutto said next school year Texas will require the TPSP be completed by all gifted/talented students in grades K-12.

Each year, districts participating in the TPSP select their top projects. They are graded at the regional level and then submitted to state.

Top projects were:

•Colten Cannon (La Mesa) — "Water Wizard," water fountain head that snaps on and off so you don’t pick up germs from water fountains

•Brosnon Buchanan (Thunderbird) — "The Alarminator," uses a laser light and heat sensor to detect intruders and then sound an alarm.

•Angela Hunley (Edgemere) — "Pretty Power," a power box that allows you to use one switch to turn on/off multiple electrical items

•Meagan Devin (Edgemere) — "The Sound Blocker System," goes over a table to keep sound out so that you can hear the people at your table.